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Academic Commons Search Resultsen-usWhat Is German Protestant Theology Saying About the Non-Christian Religions?http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:146256
Knitter, Paulhttp://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:13039Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000The following study hopes to serve as a stimulus to an ecumenical Christian Theology of the Religions by asking whether and how one segment of that theology is confronting the »other religions«. We will offer — from a »Catholic viewpoint« — a survey of present-day German Protestant attitudes towards the religions and weigh how these attitudes are clarifying the questions which are essential to a well-defined theology of the non-Christian religious world and to a theological dialogue with this world: What, if any, role do the religions play in the »history of salvation«? Can we speak of a genuine divine presence or revelation within the religions? And can this revelation be the basis for a faith-encounter with the Deity — i. e., for the attainment of salvation? — Or, more generally: must the Christian's attitude toward and encounter with other religions be basically positive or negative? And why? — What stance do contemporary German-speaking Protestant theologians take to all these questions?Theology, Comparative religionpk2256Union Theological SeminaryArticlesChristomonism in Karl Barth’s Evaluation of the Non-Christian Religionshttp://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:146259
Knitter, Paulhttp://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:13040Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000One of the sharpest and most constant criticisms which Paul Althaus leveled against Karl Barth's views of the non-Christian world was that of Christomonism. Althaus felt that the basic lack and the abiding sin in Barth's evaluation of the religions was his narrow, restrictive, exclusive understanding of the reality of Christ, which bans all extra-Christian reality into the realm of meaninglessness and godlessness. Althaus, indeed, was not alone in such accusations. He voiced an objection which, he felt, every Christian theologian must make: because Barth's vision of Christ was too narrow, too "monistic", because he set undue limitations on Christ — he missed the breadth of God's plan of salvation and the religions' role in this plan. Barth's understanding of religion and the religions is christomonistic — and therefore to be rejected. Is such a diagnosis correct? Unfortunately, Althaus, like many of Barth's critics, never spelled out in detail just how Christomonism vitiated his views of the religions. Others, therefore, warn of oversimplifying or misinterpreting Barth's sweeping, harshly condemnatory statements on the religions. The "Theologischer Konvent Augsburgischen Bekenntnisses" in 1963 cautioned against making a "Popanz" of Barth's description of religions in the Kirchliche Dogmatik. And more recently C. S. Song in a doctoral dissertation for Union Theological Seminary sweepingly affirms that those who criticize Barth's doctrine on the religions for its narrowness, have misread its deeper content: Barth's last word on the religions is positive! Finally it must be remembered that Barth's "cruelty" towards the religions was also aimed at Christianity. Can his final verdict therefore be totally negative or the product of Christomonism? It is the purpose of this article to carry out and, in a sense, to test Althaus' diagnosis. We will examine Barth's most direct and succinct treatment of the religions — Paragraph 17 of his Kirchliche Dogmatik (to be referred to as KD 17) — for the presence of Christomonism. To do this properly, our analysis of KD 17 will be made in the light of Barth's early encounter with the religions in his Römerbrief (second edition — referred to as RB). Such a study will indicate that Althaus' diagnosis, though simply and somewhat rashly stated, seems to be valid: Christomonism does form the deepest roots of Barth's evaluation of the religions. It was also the factor which marked the development of Barth's thinking on the religions from RB to KD 17 and which made his final verdict all the more negative and harsh.Theology, Religionpk2256Union Theological SeminaryArticlesKey Questions for a Theology of Religionshttp://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:146268
Knitter, Paulhttp://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:13024Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000Given the spate of studies seeking to elaborate a theology of religions that have appeared over the last five years, it is evident that the question of the "many religions," like that of the "many poor," is one of the issues that most disturb, and therefore can most invigorate, Christian consciousness. In what follows, I would like to review and analyze what I think are some of the pivotal issues in Christian efforts to come to a clearer, more adequate and coherent, understanding of other religions and of Christianity in the light of other faiths.Theology, Comparative religionpk2256Union Theological SeminaryArticlesA Dialogical Church: Newly Born and Still Growinghttp://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:146283
Knitter, Paulhttp://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:13029Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000As I look back over the past quarter century, since the birthing of Horizons, I witness, from my personal theological perch, the concomitant birthing of what we might call a "dialogical church." Since the theological watershed of Vatican IPs Nostra Aetate, there has begun in the church, especially the Roman Catholic Church, a sea-change in its relationships with other religions. In this "Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions," a Christian church did something that no Christian church had ever done before in its two-millennia journey through history: it affirmed the divinely given truth and value of other religions and then called upon its sons and daughters, "prudently and lovingly" to engage in "dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions." This shift (some might call it an about-face) in Christian attitudes gave birth to a new kind of church—a church that gradually has come to understand itself as a religious community in conversation with other religious communities.Theology, Comparative religionpk2256Union Theological SeminaryArticlesWorld Religions and the Finality of Christ: A Critique of Hans Küng's On Being a Christianhttp://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:146271
Knitter, Paulhttp://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:13025Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000Küng's case for the relevance of Christianity and his program for dialogue with other religions include claims for the exclusive uniqueness and normativity of Christ. This article raises the following questions: 1) Are such claims necessary for personal commitment to Christ and for fidelity to the New Testament witness? 2) Do they allow for genuine dialogue with other religions? 3) Are they even possible in the light of prevalent norms for theological and historical-critical methodology?Theology, Religionpk2256Union Theological SeminaryArticlesCommitment to One -- Openness to Others: A Challenge for Christianshttp://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:146286
Knitter, Paulhttp://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:13031Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000As we so often hear, Christians of every new generation, or in any new cultural context, have to answer for themselves the question Jesus posed for the first generation of disciples: "Who do you say I am?" (Mk 8:27) This is a question that can be answered only in the light of other questions—that is, the personal, social, political, scientific questions we find ourselves grappling with in our own age and experience. The meaning of Jesus "becomes flesh" again in the meaning and direction we struggle for in our own times.Theology, Religionpk2256Union Theological SeminaryArticlesResponse to Reviews of "Faith, Religion and Theology: A Contemporary Introduction"http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:146298
Hill, Brennan R.; Knitter, Paul; Madges, Williamhttp://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:13034Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000The following response to our four friendly but challenging reviewers follows the same process and format used in our book. The three of us sat down to determine, first, the issues to be dealt with and then, who would do what. After Denise Lardner Carmody's concise and complete summary of our book's contents and intents, the concerns seemed to fall into three broad categories: (1) The insider-outsider problematic (Barnes); (2) the place of theology in a religiously affiliated university and the roles of spirituality and worship in such a theology (Cunningham); and (3) concerns about our overall method, together with the limitations on such a method resulting from the white, Catholic, middle-class, maleness of all three authors (Carmody and Hinsdale). Paul Knitter responds to the first issue; William Madges to the second, and Brennan Hill to the third.Religion, Theologypk2256Union Theological SeminaryArticlesResponse to Reviews of "No Other Name? Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes Toward the World Religions"http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:146289
Knitter, Paulhttp://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:13032Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000I wrote No Other Name? to ask a question and invite a response—the question mark on the title page is meant with utter seriousness. In the book I wanted to formulate as lucidly as possible what I think is a pressing, though often unconfronted, question for Christian belief and practice and then to propose what I think is a viable, though still controversial, answer to that question. My answer, though, is still part of the question. Whether the proposed "theocentric model" (or something like it) is valid for the Christian academy and ecclesia will depend, in great measure, on how much it merits the "placet" or (to be realistic) the "placet juxta modum" of my theological colleagues and fellow believers.Religion, Theologypk2256Union Theological SeminaryArticlesTheocentric Christologyhttp://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:146170
Knitter, Paulhttp://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:13003Mon, 16 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000This article explores how Christian theologians in their encounter with other religions are moving from a Christocentric Christology which affirms Jesus as the final, definitive and universally normative revelation of God to a theocentric Christology which stresses the universal revealing activity of God and confesses Jesus as a universally relevant but not necessarily definitive and normative expression of that revelation. Such a theocentric Christology is traced in the works of John Hick, Raimundo Panikkar, Stanley J. Samartha and in the writings of theologians engaged in a dialogue with Judaism (John Pawlikowski, Monika Hellwig) and of first world liberation/political theologians (Rosemary Ruether, Tom Driver).Theologypk2256Union Theological SeminaryArticlesChristian theology in the post-modern erahttp://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:146066
Knitter, Paulhttp://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:12981Wed, 11 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000Responding to postmodemity as one of the "signs of the times," Christians will have to carry out a balancing act between commitment to their own convictions and apenness to those of others. This has implication for five areas of Christian theology and praxis. In theological method, we must recognise that ali our beliefs are symbols that tell us something but never everything about God, self, world. In christology, we understand and follow Christ as the Way that is open to other Ways. The Church will be seen as a community that seeks a Reign of God that will always be more than what we now know of it. Ethics will be based on the principles and practice of non-violence: full commitment to moral convictions joined with genuine respect and compassion toward the convictions of others. Such a theology will need to be rooted in a spirituality in which we are "absolutely" committed to truths that we recognise are always "relative" -- a truly eschatological spirituality that is always "on the way."Religion, Theologypk2256Union Theological SeminaryArticlesReview of Theology and the Dialogue of Religions, by By Michael Barneshttp://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:146055
Knitter, Paulhttp://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:12978Wed, 11 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000This book is as rewarding as it is demanding. Barnes, well-known for his work at Heythrop College's Centre for Christianity in Inter-religious Dialogue, makes an intricate case for a simple claim.Religion, Theologypk2256Union Theological SeminaryArticlesMission and Dialoguehttp://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:146052
Knitter, Paulhttp://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:12977Wed, 11 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000Given the seismic shift from church-centeredness to kingdom-centeredness in the Christian understanding of mission, given the growing awareness that to pursue the kingdom as Jesus did requires a preferential concern for the poor and marginalized, given the recognition that Jesus went about his ministry by means of a self-emptying dialogue with others—putting together all three of these new perspectives in Christian theology, we can describe the contemporary Christian understanding of mission as follows: Mission is dialogue with others in service of God's kingdom for the poor and marginalized. In such mission-as-dialogue, conversion remains a goal, but it is primarily (not exclusively) conversion to the service of God's kingdom.Religion, Theologypk2256Union Theological SeminaryArticles